Riversong
by alorawillnot
Summary: 10 years aftermath; Chihiro's return to Aburaya


Prologue: Ten Years Aftermath

In the far, far corner of a world none too like our own, is a pit of coarse sand and bitter wind, a place full of magic that seems to siphon all the worlds sunlight and concentrate it in this one dreadful place. Here, where bandits shape anarchy into the law of the land, where water is as scarce as honesty, it feels as though one has as much chance of returning home as a bird to its shell. Here, even among allies, friends, even among family, you are alone.

Let's zoom in on young Shahir, buoyant, spry, and most definitely a catalyst in our tale. He races up a dune, far more efficiently spraying sand behind him than propelling him forward, toward the hovel he is lucky to call home. He lives here with his father, who, upon his son nearly ripping down the privacy curtain on his way in the door, violently bursts from his chair, and stumbles forward. But nothing is going to stop Shahir right now, not a broken curtain rod, and certainly not his father's fear of the outside.

"Bapa! Bapa, listen to me!" Shahir cries, shaking his father's shoulders.

"Should I sit down for this?" the older man is quick to ask. He bends to sit back in his chair, but his son lurches him back up by the arm.

"No, Bapa. You have to come with me. You have to help me." Shahir lurches his father back through the curtain, a tangle of both urgency and reluctance. One tangled curtain later, the two are trekking across the dunes, Shahir dragging his father and his father dragging his feet. It is a mile, it is ten, it is a hundred – it doesn't matter the distance or the lack of breadcrumbs, Shahir knows the way and he bee-lines it.

"Shahir, my son, my heart can't take this," his father croaks, clutching his chest with one hand and adjusting his headdress with another.

With eyes keen despite the heat and winds and exhaustion, Shahir points to what could easily be a mirage on the horizon. His father calls it out as such, as he knew this desert twice as well as his son in his younger days, and there had never been even a glimpse of an oasis like this for at least ten miles in either direction.

Yet here it is. Water as blue as the sky in spring. And green. Foliage, full and vibrant and alive. Shahir pushes his way through the bounding branches and leaves and underbrush, his path set on the heart of this alien jungle. His father feels the base of every tree they pass, knots his fingers in the thick moss, gropes the spongy, heady bark like it is gold in his palms. "Shahir, I've never…" He sounds on the verge of tears. His son presses on. "Shahir, wait, I've never seen plants like this. I've never seen anything so…"

"Bapa, keep on."

"How can you pass by this, this beauty? Shahir, I've never…"

But as the brush grows thicker and the pungent scent of rushing water nearer, even his father doesn't slow. They press on, further and further, until they come to a clearing, and in it, a blue and glimmering yolk of water. Water, as far as the eye could see. A calm lake stemming off into a waterfall stemming off into a river that leads rushing into another strange thresh of trees. Shahir's father steps forward, and falls to his knees, and links his fingers together to pray.

Shahir drops to his knees in mirror, but curses the god his father prays to. He curses the day and his entire life. He weeps and it is not until now that his father comes to him.

"Shahir," he says, clapping a hand on his son's back. "Do not weep, my son. We have unearthed the treasure of ten lifetimes! Do you not understand what this means? How our lives have changed forever?"

There is a long bout of silence before Shahir staggers to his feet, with the aide of his father, and breathes out as heavy as the day is long. "Bapa, I did not take you here to show you this oasis," he chokes.

"Then what?" his father asks.

"I was on my way back from the city when I found this place, this… heaven on the horizon. I, too, expected it to be a mirage. But when I tilled its soil with my hands and drank its water until I was full, I knew," Shahir says. "But it was when I arrived here, that…"

He trails off. His father shakes him back to the present. "That what, my son?"

"I don't know what it was… but it was beautiful. This creature, emerging from the water. Elegant and fierce… with scales… hundreds, thousands, flat pearls shimmering like starlight under the morning sun…" He lifts his eyes from the ground and looks to his father, desperately. "A handsome mane and a snout like a wolf. Haunting eyes, eyes that could kill."

"A mirage within this mirage," his father hums, gesturing to the sky.

Shahir grips his father's shoulders once more. "I am not … humoring you, Bapa. This creature was badly hurt. Wounds like I've never seen. It was near death, I know."

"So where is it?"

Shahir looks once more to his hands. "That's just the thing. I don't know…"

"Then what's that there, Shahir," his father says. He points, to across the lake, but his son is so dejected that he does not even care to look. "No, look. There's a figure on the bank. But it's much too small to be what you described."

Shahir looks up at this. Sure enough, across the lake is a heaped form crumpled on the bank. It is too small, far too small to be his regal creature, but it definitely looks living. Or just barely, at least. But it can't be, thinks Shahir. That's where I saw the…

"Come, father," he says. "Follow me."

They circle their way around the lake, and indulgently wade in the riverbed on their way through. The closer they get to the figure, the faster they travel. Not only is the mass most definitely living (or previously living), but it is bleeding profusely. Each step forward only reveals more wounds the father and son can see on the victim. They only hope that by the time they get to it, it won't be just the shell of that victim.

"Is it is an animal?" Shahir's father asks, hobbling as fast as one his age might hobble.

"No, it's…" Shahir stumbles on himself, pauses for a moment. He holds back his father, who has stepped in his sons shoes, and is now the one eager to press forward. But they stop, not ten feet from this crumpled figure, shrouded in blood and torn muslin. At this moment, the coin has not yet landed and both heads and tails exist at the same time. At this moment, this … person … is both alive and dead.

An eternity passes. At last, with quaking fingers, Shahir arches over the stained figure, and peels back the cloth in one fell swoop.

"It's… a child."


End file.
